Do you see? Do you see!!??

This past weekend Daniel and I took a day trip down to Seattle for two purposes: 1) to have dinner at the most amazing Italian restaurant ever called Bizarro and 2) to visit the Experience Music Museum. In general the exhibits were pretty cool but wasn't exceptionally great. I was, however, extremely trilled and impressed by the grunge and punk section.

Pillar of guitars. What a waste of perfectly playable instruments.

Ah, the elusive grunge aesthetic; ironically fashionable, kind of like the modern day hipster trend. Except that the latter thrives on being ironically and poorly dressed and that the former just really didn't give a shit about clothes. At least they say.

An epic shot of Mudhoney --- one of the leading pioneers of grunge

The Nirvana display... "fucking amazing" is all I have to say

Those are Kurt Cobain's guitar and Kris Novoselic's bass. It's hard to tell in this picture but both instruments are totally trashed from they playing like maniac's back in the day.

"We want revolution, GIRL STYLE NOW!!!!"
My second favorite part of the museum is all the displays of The Supremes stage costumes they wore back in the days. Just look at these dresses, they're ridiculously fabulous!

Sorry about the slide show post but I've just been so exhausted looking for a job I'm a little uninspired to write. But don't worry, once this is over I'll again be sharing my thoughts with you all.

Glorious and Free?

I'd just like to take a moment, a serious moment to discuss the recent happenings in Toronto at the G20 Summit. For those of you who live in Canada but are unaware of the current situation I direct you to the news and/or Youtube. This is a matter concerning a threat to our democratic rights and freedoms as well as your responsibility as a free agent.To be honest, before yesterday I was not even aware of the G20 Summit. After being shocked and baffled by what I briefly saw on the news yesterday morning, I knew that it was a big deal or else people wouldn't be protesting and the protests wouldn't turn into violence. As I learned more about this global meeting and what it stood for and why people in Toronto were so furious with it, I started to get a real sense of just what is at stake. I'm not going to comment on the social reasons behind the oppositions to the G20 Summit because that would take up a whole other post. Instead, I want to talk about the government's response to the protests and the injustices and atrocities that turned the peaceful demonstrators into militant activists.
According to Naava Smolash's account on the recent G20 protest in Toronto and Olympic protest in Vancouver, just prior to the G20 Summit, the government of Toronto past a new which granted the police the right to randomly conduct body searches on and demand I.D. from whomever they fancy. This law was passed unbeknown to Toronto citizens and it is because of this "new rule", random by-standers who my not even be necessarily involved with the protest were stopped and questioned by the police around the G20 Summit convention perimeter. Aside from the unjustifiable authority to violate citizens' privacy, as many videos and journalists documented, the Toronto police also made illegal arrests and attacked peaceful protesters and journalists throughout the day. But perhaps the most perverse thing of it all is that many mainstream media sources have twisted the story and framed the report and referred to the protesters who chose to deliver their message by smashing symbolic and inanimate objects (the most poignant example is of the burning police car with the phrase "to serve and protect" clearly seen in photograph) as "thugs and hooligans". Many people criticize these people as "violent", but my question remains, how is smashing non-living, materialistic property violent while pepper-spraying and striking people with batons "lawful", "just" and "non-violent"?Ten years ago, I immigrated from China to Canada and never in a million years did I expect a violation of human rights would happen here in a country which takes pride in its progressiveness and civil rights. How ironic is this: by exercising democratic principles (namely the right to peaceful assembly and the right from unreasonable search and seizure), the citizens of Toronto were subjected to harassment and arrests? Yesterday's events were almost reminiscent of a history of bloodshed in my home country where thousands died, fighting for democracy and freedom. And twenty-one years later, in a democratic country I see the same type of police-state control, oppression and unjust violation perpetrated against its people. Except in this case the hypocrisy makes it even more disturbing and unforgivable.

I am going to be away until next Monday, so no posts for a bit.

Freudian

For the nth time today, someone called me "small" and "cute" but this time it was different because usually those words would annoy me to no end. But today, instead of cringing immediately following the echoic impression of those adjectives, I simply responded to them with a mental "whatdiyagonnado" shrug. And that in itself seemed a tad strange to me. I couldn't help but wonder if this new found indifference was a result of me getting used to being labeled that all the time or simply a classic case of "learned helplessness" where I've pretty much lost all hope in trying to get people to see me as more than that. Either way, both options indicate defeat. I think I'm a classic case of someone who has deep-seated inferiority complex and being constantly referred to as "small", "cute", "petite" or sometimes just plain" awwwwww" are just the type reinforcements for sustaining this underlying anxiety.
Seeing how some women out there are obsessed with "sizing-down" they would probably want to shoot me for complaining about having a small stature. However, I would just like to justify my annoyance with the fact that being called "small" may seem like flattery in today's "fat-prejudice" society, the truth is I (along with my fellow "tiny" people) do not feel complimented. In fact, I feel somewhat insulted whenever people comment on my size. It makes me feel patronized, belittled and de-individualized. More importantly, when and why did people start considering "small" as a positive trait to characterize someone? Moreover, the worst part of it is that whenever I would speak up against those "sizeist" comments, I get weird looks like I'm crazy for not wanting to be perceived as "small". As if I'm oblivious or simply stupid for not recognizing that they have just given me a praise. In in that sense, I think "small" people are at a disadvantage because while "bigger" people can rant and express their offense, us small folks are not only "not allowed" to protest, we are also sometimes expected to simply accept or even thank those who "awarded" us with those labels. I think there should be a new category of prejudice called "sizeism" and it should apply not only to those who are over-weight but also those who are smaller than the average population.
(I put the words "small" and "big" in quotations because I don't endorse their connotations or their over-usage in describing people whom we really don't know anything about.)

This outfit was inspired by a someone on lookbook. To compensate for my lack of height, I wore high-waisted pants and a crop top, but regardless of my attempt at achieving a few "visual inches", I was still called "small".